The questions relate to investigations and enforcement activities against rogue general firms and sole traders in the repair, maintenance and improvement sector, undertaken by the council and/or its Trading Standards department.
These complaints, investigations and prosecutions could be for reports of work by builders and fitters that is incomplete, completed to a poor standard or dangerous, or where a customer has been over-charged, defrauded or otherwise faced unfair practices.
For each of the last four years:
1) How many reports and complaints about cowboy builders did your authority receive? This could be directly or via a conduit such as Citizens’ Advice.
2) How many investigations did your authority open into cowboy builders?
3) How many fines did your authority issue to cowboy builders?
4) What was the collective value of these fines?
5) How many times did your authority prosecute individuals and businesses accused of being rogue builders?
6) How many of these prosecutions resulted in convictions?
7) How many convictions resulted in prison sentences?
8) How many of these were suspended sentences?
When it comes to prosecutions I expect you will have your own categorisation of criminal activity related to builders and fitters. From my own research it appears prosecutions may include, but as I’m not an expert should not be limited to, charges of;
:: Trader knowingly / recklessly engage in a commercial practice (unfair trading regulations 2008).
:: Trader engage in unfair commercial practice (unfair trading regulations 2008)
:: Trader engage in a commercial practice which is a misleading omission (unfair trading regulations 2008)
:: Trader engage in a commercial practice which was aggressive (unfair trading regulations 2008)
:: Conspiracy by trader to engage in a commercial practice which is a misleading action etc. (unfair trading regulations 08)
:: Fraud by false representation (fraud act 2006)
:: Participate in fraudulent business carried on by sole trader (fraud act 2006)
:: Dishonestly fail to disclose information to make a gain for self / another or cause / expose other to a loss.
I would be grateful if you could provide the data in an Excel Spreadsheet, however if a PDF or word document is easier for you then that is fine.